The Source of SelfRegard, Toni Morrison
The Source of SelfRegard, Toni Morrison
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The Source of Self-Regard
Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations

Bestseller

Author: Toni Morrison

Narrator: Bahni Turpin

Unabridged: 16 hr 3 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/12/2019

Synopsis

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Here is the Nobel Prize winner in her own words: a rich gathering of her most important essays and speeches, spanning four decades that "speaks to today’s social and political moment as directly as this morning’s headlines” (NPR).

These pages give us her searing prayer for the dead of 9/11, her Nobel lecture on the power of language, her searching meditation on Martin Luther King Jr., her heart-wrenching eulogy for James Baldwin. She looks deeply into the fault lines of culture and freedom: the foreigner, female empowerment, the press, money, “black matter(s),” human rights, the artist in society, the Afro-American presence in American literature. And she turns her incisive critical eye to her own work (The Bluest Eye, Sula, Tar Baby, Jazz, Beloved, Paradise) and that of others.

An essential collection from an essential writer, The Source of Self-Regard shines with the literary elegance, intellectual prowess, spiritual depth, and moral compass that have made Toni Morrison our most cherished and enduring voice.

About Toni Morrison

Possibly one of the best known and most talented Black authors, Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison, was an American author, essayist, book editor, and college professor. She was born and grew up in Lorain, Ohio. She was the second of four children of a working class family. Her parents had difficult childhoods, with her father having witnessed a lynching of two Black businessmen who lived on his street. It was a very traumatic experience for her father, so he ended up moving to Ohio where there were more industrial jobs being offered. When Toni was about two years old, their landlord set fire to their house for non-payment of rent. They were home at the time. They laughed at the incident which she later described "as how her family kept their integrity and claimed their own life".

Morrison read frequently the works of Jane Austen and Leo Tolstoy. She took the Baptismal name of Anthony, which led to her nickname, Toni. She attended Lorain High School where she was on the debate team, participated in drama productions, and assisted with the yearbook. She then graduated from Howard University in English and the classics. Continuing her education, she completed her Master's Degree in two years from Cornell University, writing her thesis on Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner.

After graduating from Cornell, she settled in Texas, where she taught at Texas Southern University.

She has received about every prestigious award for her writing, which includes......The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Beloved (which was made into a 1998 film), Jazz, Love, and A Mercy. Her highest honor was in 2012 when she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Michael on October 22, 2020

This is a wonderful collection of Toni Morrison's writing, primarily in speeches given at various functions. Admittedly, some of the themes are repetitive and we don't necessarily have the context in which she is speaking, but her words always have such power and beauty. What I really enjoyed was wh......more

Goodreads review by Julie on August 06, 2019

Exquisite with wisdom, grace, vulnerability and compassion, like all of Toni Morrison's work. I am in awe of this writer's mind, her work ethic, the way she brings the intensity and power of jazz into the written word. She is this nation's greatest literary treasure. Oh. I posted this only an hour or......more

Goodreads review by B. P. on April 07, 2019

I didn't think I would be reading this book so relatively soon. I've not read as much of her novels as I wanted and I wanted my own copy of this book over a library copy--this will definitely merit a re-read where I can sit with it a little more. So this will be my "abridged" overview. One thing that......more

Goodreads review by Ebony on July 28, 2021

I refuse to embarrass myself trying to review, let alone critique, Toni THEE Morrison. No ma'am. She is the GOAT. No question, no argument.......more

Quotes

“Close your eyes and make a wish. Wish that one of the most informed, smartest, most successful people in your profession walks into your living room, pulls up a chair and says, “This is what I’ve been thinking. …” That’s “The Source of Self-Regard… The bursts of rumination examine world history, skirt religion, scour philosophy, racism, anti-Semitism, femininity, war and folk tales…There’s even a tidbit or two about her closely guarded personal life. But the real magic is witnessing her mind and imagination at work… This book demonstrates once again that Morrison is more than the standard bearer of American literature. She is our greatest singer. And this book is perhaps her most important song.”
—James McBride, New York Times
 
“The Source of Self-Regard speaks to today's social and political moment as directly as this morning's headlines... Morrison tackles headfirst the weighty issues that have long troubled America's conscience... profoundly insightful.”
—NPR
 
“Clearly we do not deserve Morrison, and clearly we need her badly...In this collection of nonfiction written over the past four decades, the revered (and sometimes controversial) author reinforces her status as a piercing and visionary analyst of history, society, literature, language, and, always, race... the book explodes into pure brilliance... [It is Morrison’s] definitive statement.”
—The Boston Globe

"Dazzlingly heady and deeply personal—a rumination on her literary career and artistic mission, which is to reveal and honor the aching beauty and unfolding drama of African American life... Have there been many minds more intriguing, or writers more sublimely challenging? The Source of Self-Regard excavates Morrison's vast well of knowledge. Open its pages and receive."
—O Magazine
 
"In an era when complex ideas are reduced to slogans and tweets, when language is dumbed down and truth so often debased, The Source of Self-Regard moves with courage and assurance in the opposite direction. What a gift."
—The Tampa Bay Times

"Brilliantly incisive essays, speeches, and meditations considering race, power, identity, and art... Powerful, highly compelling pieces from one of our greatest writers."
—Kirkus (starred review)

"Morrison turns a critical eye on race, social politics, money, feminism, culture, and the press, with the essential mandate that each of us bears the responsibility for reaching beyond our superficial identities and circumstances for a closer look at what it means to be human."
—Booklist (starred review)

"Some superb pieces headline this rich collection...Prescient and highly relevant to the present political moment..."
—Publishers Weekly

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